Chaos in Alexandra continued to escalate through the weekend, though people are doing the best they can to live their lives as normal and many claim not to have noticed the violence that has largely been driven by xenophobia. Calm prevailed on Tuesday morning, but one wonders if the tenuous peace will hold. Stranded and fearful, hundreds of foreign residents of Alexandra are squatting at the police station until either alternative accomodations emerge or some guarantee of calm prevails.
Obviously the root of the violence in the cramped Johannesburg township is the grim nature of much of urban life. The economically vulnerable need to find someone to lash out at, and foreigners make for a logical scapegoat. Xenophobia, though real, thus becomes an exciuse and a catchall justification for what poverty has brought.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
